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Rationally Speaking is a blog maintained by Prof. Massimo Pigliucci, a philosopher at the City University of New York. The blog reflects the Enlightenment figure Marquis de Condorcet's idea of what a public intellectual (yes, we know, that's such a bad word) ought to be: someone who devotes himself to "the tracking down of prejudices in the hiding places where priests, the schools, the government, and all long-established institutions had gathered and protected them." You're welcome. Please notice that the contents of this blog can be reprinted under the standard Creative Commons license.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

On parapsychology

www.uc2enter.com

by Massimo Pigliucci

A few weeks ago I published at Rationally Speaking a guest post by my former (undergraduate) student Maaneli Derakhshani, who made a case for the scientific status of parapsychology. Some of my readers criticized the choice as an instance of allowing pseudoscience to be represented in what I hope is a reputable science and philosophy blog. That sentiment is, I think, misguided. If we really pride ourselves on our critical thinking we ought to be able to take other people’s best arguments on board and show if and why they are mistaken. And Maaneli did make a very good argument in defense of parapsychology.

I also think Maaneli, in response to some of the many comments posted, is correct in saying that it took courage for him to “come out” in this manner. As I understand it, he is hoping for a scientific career in theoretical physics, and he rightly argues that writing favorably on behalf of parapsychology is not going to help his chances. I know that I would not hire in my department someone with leanings toward what I consider to be a pseudoscience.

But is parapsychology a pseudoscience, as Maaneli chides me for having opined both in podcasts and in my Nonsense on Stilts book? He thinks not, based on his analysis of a small but persistent literature concerning experiments performed under so-called "psi-conducive" conditions, like the Maimonides dream telepathy and the Ganzfeld (“total field”) experiments.

I am sure I will disappoint both Maaneli and some of my readers who were actually supportive of his analysis, but I will not engage his claims one by one. This is, I assure you, not a cop out, but a reasonable decision based on three considerations. First, other critics of the paranormal have done a much better and more in-depth job at criticizing the experiments produced by Daryl Bem and others (for the most recent example, see this devastating critique of Bem's porn-facilitated clairvoyance experiments, published in Skeptical Inquirer. Additional critical sources are listed at the end of this post). Second, neither Maaneli nor I have access to the raw data or have been in a position to double check in person (or at least try to duplicate) the experimental protocols under discussion. Without that, we are both reduced to trusting the analyses (or in my case, the criticisms) done by others. Third, the question asked by Maaneli is whether and why current parapsychology qualifies as science or should be relegated to pseudoscience, and this issue is broader and more interesting than endless skirmishes about p-values and meta-analyses. I will therefore focus this post solely on Maaneli’s fundamental question.

One argument made by supporters of parapsychology is that there is by now sufficient evidence to accord the discipline scientific status (and, presumably, academic status and funding to its practitioners) because the quality of the marshaled evidence is at least as good as run of the mill evidence published in mainstream psychology journals. Besides the fact that there actually is much reasonable doubt that the latter assertion corresponds to the truth, the argument fails for two reasons. First, one could respond that at best this shows that a lot of psychology is sloppy science. As a formerly practicing scientist (in evolutionary biology) I can assure you that quite a bit of below par science is done (and, unfortunately, published) all the time. An embarrassing number of papers in mainstream science is based on bad experimental procedures, presents woefully inadequate and biased samples, and reports flawed statistical analyses. The reason this isn’t a bigger deal (although it probably got tenure for a number of people who should have dropped out of science in graduate school) is that scientific peer review is an endless process that eventually sifts the few nuggets of gold and simply ignores the sea of useless crap.

Second, as every skeptic knows very well, Hume's dictum reigns (though often in Carl Sagan's paraphrase): extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. This is true of normal science as well. Nobody bothers to replicate or even critically re-analyze boring results that simply confirm what we already know, only under slightly different circumstances. But try to claim cold fusion, or faster than light particles, and suddenly the standards of proof become much much higher. And so they should, as unfair as the individual scientist may feel about this epistemic heuristic.

Now, parapsychological claims of telepathy, clairvoyance and the like are just about as extraordinary as they come. One can reasonably argue that if confirmed, these claims would overturn physics and biology as we understand them, possibly violating several fundamental laws (vague nods to “quantum entanglement” effects notwithstanding). That being the case, Bem and colleagues simply have to do a hell of a lot better than they have done so far, and my bet is that they simply won’t be able to.

By the way, this isn't a question of effect size, for which several readers have erroneously hammered Maaneli. There are plenty of examples in science, from ecology to quantum physics, where the effect size is very small indeed. But the results are statistically clear, methodologically unimpeachable, and repeatable ad nauseam by a large community of scientists. None of the above is the case for anything that parapsychology has produced so far.

What about the lack of a sound theory? Again, Maaneli is correct in citing examples from the history of science when we didn’t have a theoretical explanation for certain observations, and yet the scientific community has eventually accepted the results and incorporated them into mainstream science. But a closer look at some of these examples is very instructive. Take Wegener’s idea of continental drift, which turned out to be correct, and which was based on initially already strong evidence (much better evidence, I submit, than anything produced in parapsychology). Still, the idea was not accepted immediately, and it took among other things the development of a sound theory to explain the phenomenon before geologists came on board en masse. And so it should be, since science isn’t just a collection of facts, odd or not, it is an attempt to understand those facts and how they fit into everything else we know about how the universe works.

Parapsychology has had more than a century to produce compelling facts and reasonable theories. It has fallen very short on the first count, and embarrassingly so on the second one. Nobody seems to have any idea of what “psi” is and why it works in the way in which it allegedly works. And nobody seems to have any clue at all concerning how “psi” might fit with everything else that psychology, physiology, neurobiology, evolutionary biology, chemistry and physics tell us about human cognitive abilities (again, vague references to quantum mechanics won’t do, despite how easily Deepak Chopra can make them). This is a really tall mountain for parapsychologists to climb, and they seem stuck on the first or second step.

Which brings me to why parapsychology is best thought of as pseudoscience. Karl Popper famously thought that the so-called demarcation problem, finding something that distinguishes science from pseudoscience, had been solved by his own criterion of falsifiability. Not so in modern philosophy of science. Maarten Boudry and I, as I have mentioned before, are finishing up the editing of a new book on the demarcation problem, to be published by Chicago Press. One of the things we learned from the many contributors to the volume is that nobody any longer thinks of science (or pseudoscience) as a simple concept that is amenable to a sharp definition based on a small set of necessary and jointly sufficient conditions. But we have also learned that many philosophers think that a hallmark of pseudoscience is the persistence of its practitioners to make grand and revolutionary claims in spite of the equally persisting dearth of compelling evidence (and theory) to back them up. This scenario, I think, fits the situation of parapsychology very well.

However, Maarten and I have also seen many of our colleagues argue — again, correctly, we think — that a pseudoscientific status is historically contingent. That is, something may be confined to pseudoscience for a long time and then emerge triumphantly, or vice versa, may be considered good science for a while, only to be eventually relegated to pseudoscience. Phrenology is an example of the latter, evolutionary biology one of the former (I know, surprising, but see the essay by Michael Ruse that I discussed at RS in the context of a recent book on biology and ideology).

So the verdict is pretty much never final, and good skeptics really ought to keep an open mind. But the more time that passes without significant and widely acknowledged progress, the more one’s skepticism is reasonable and warranted. So here is my suggestion to Maaneli: either shelve this whole thing and concentrate on your budding career as a theoretical physicist, or get your hands dirty and work to produce the kind of evidence (and theory) that really has the potential to shock the scientific world into paying attention. If you don’t mind the advise, however, my bet is that you’ll be far better off taking the first route.

Here is Radin's criticism of the Alcock article:http://deanradin.blogspot.com/2010/12/my-comments-on-alcocks-comments-on-bems.html

If you can be bothered to read these, you'll find that they present an entirely different picture of Alcock's article. The factual one. Alcock just went ahead and made stuff up. He's got all the skeptical talking points in there which have no basis in reality.

It looks like you're referring to the 1999 Milton-Wiseman meta-analysis. Did you you that it was debunked almost 10 years ago? Try looking up this PDF: “Heads I Lose, Tails You Win”,Or, How Richard Wiseman Nullifies Positive Results, and What toDo about It: A Response to Wiseman’s (2010) Critique ofParapsychologyby Chris Carter

David Marks "The Psychology of the Psychic" is not comparable to the far far better "The H.I.S.S. of the A.S.P." by David Ritchey who is not merely speculating, but has done real research with real psychic people.

Excellent post, just a comment about the effect size. While it's true that in other sciences you can also find small effect sizes, they are usually embodied in a larger well supported theory with larger effect sizes. In psi, the effect sizes of such grand claims should not be that small, and inconsistent. You would expect that if someone can read your mind then he/she should do it with much more consistency and larger effect sizes because if not, you should explain what interfere in their ability to be more consistent. The fact that every small effect is reported as a huge finding, suggest to the "file drawer effect" more than anything.

Yep, if we're going to hurl Bibles at each other it probably makes no sense to worry about the quality of the writing. Like the Skeptical Inquirer being likened to a "fundamentalist religious tract" by psychologist Elizabeth Mayer (a skeptic herself), or the general concerns about Susan Blackmore's research and motivations (see Chris Carter's Parapsychology and the Skeptics Ch. 8). And while we're busy philosophizing, there's a tsunami rising up behind our cozy little cafe, getting ready to wipe out our useless arguments - and it's going to come from biophysics and other mainstream sciences, not from your grandfather's ganzfeld shop. Stick to your physics, Maaneli - you're going in the right direction!

Why modern philosophers think as 18th century physicists thought ??Is there a para-normal phenomenon? A phenomenon is a phenomenon. It is the theory that makes it para- or -normal. After all "Observations always involve theory" as Edwin Hubble put it. Or as Douglas Adams cried out: "We demand rigidly deﬁned areas of doubt and uncertainty". Can't do sorry. Students move on beyond their teachers' radar screen and this is how horizon's broaden.By the way: Your list of references is seriously outdated a more updated list would have included "Entangled Minds: Extrasensory Experiences in a Quantum Reality (2006)". Why modern philosophers still think as 18th century physicists did?? Why they do not address the issue of substance as modern physics does?

There is nothing in modern physics that supports the possibility that the sequence of change is time reversible. Time measurement is reversible, time sequence is not. Future sequencing cannot revert to affect its present past.

Weak argument Massimo. I was hoping you'd get into the nitty gritty of critiquing science methodology.

For example, here's a paper that shows listening to a song about old age makes them literally physically younger (e.g., 50 year old becomes 49.9 years old). The point of the paper is to show how significant an effect researcher bias has on results (and in the original thread I brought this up as good reason to ignore the results of Bem, et al). Not only that, the paper provides guidelines for correcting these biases. Will they be enacted by the journals? I'm not hopeful.

And let's not forget how generally incompetent scientists and the journal system are (1, 2, 3, 4, 5). Honestly, the only reasonable thing to do is assume all new and illiquid research is inconclusive until it can be regressed to the mean after a decade or more of replications.

Craig, I have read both Alcock's critique and Bem's response, and if anything, Bem's arguments are embarassing. Not only he ignore the key objections that Alcock makes but his major response is appeal to authority. Again and again he keeps mentioning how repuatable the journal is and how the editor and the reviewers fail to mention any of Alcock's point. He deosn't understand the limitations of the peer review process and he flat out wrong in his response to the statistical issue of multiple comparisons.

The ESP investigators are looking in the wrong places. They should be studying musicians, lovers, and other emotionally involved individuals. Another place they might look is the relationship between dogs and people. Ask a dog's companion if the dog can read their mind and most will agree that it is the least hypothesis.

gil,Some knowledge of parapsychology would be helpful to you in this case. As Radin points out in is assessment of Alcock's article, it is full of errors. This is something I noticed immediately the first time I read Alcock's paper. You should keep in mind as well that the peer reviewers for Bem's paper were skeptical themselves. No psychology journal is going to accept a parapsychology paper unless it is bulletproof.

Carlin,You're right about that. And researchers have indeed done those things. Some of the autoganzfeld experiments were done specifically with gifted artists and the results were far and away better than other groups. 45% success as opposed to 33%.

The emotionally involved individuals you are referring to are known in psychology as Schizotypal. The main book exploring this is The H.I.S.S. of the A.S.P. by David Ritchey.

Dog experiments were successfully done by Rupert Sheldrake. You can read about them in his book Dogs that Know When their Owner is Coming Home. (Wiseman supposedly debunked this, but his debunking was based on criteria of his own invention and partially based on the reports of TV announcers. He did not fully review the whole database or comment on it directly.)

Massimo, thanks. Many points to address there, but since I have limited space, I choose the following.

Regarding your cited sources, the very first one by Blackmore is actually not a criticism of the Ganzfeld experiments – in that paper, she actually concludes that the file-drawer is not a tenable explanation of the Ganzfeld results, because 7/19 of the unreported studies she found were independently statistically significant above chance.

As for the other sources, they all have detailed published rebuttals, and it seems very one-sided to cite those sources without also citing their rebuttals.

Regarding overturning physics and biology as we understand them, I’ve heard the claim before with respect to physics, but I’ve never seen a valid argument to support the assertion; and in my judgment, it need not be the case that ESP would necessarily (or likely) overturn physics as we know it. But if you believe you have a valid argument, I’d be interested to hear it. Regarding biology, I’m not a biologist, but I’m not sure what in biology must be overturned if ESP were confirmed.

Regarding your doubt that the marshaled evidence is at least as good as run of the mill evidence in mainstream psychology journals, consider the following points:

(1) In 1999, Sheldrake surveyed papers in leading science journals to discover what proportion in different ﬁelds took precautions for experimenter effects and used blind assessments of data. The highest proportion by far was found in parapsychology (85%), followed by medical science (24%) and psychology (7%).

(2) In his 1988 report for the NRC on the quality of research in five controversial areas of behavioral science, the world-renowned Harvard psychologist Robert Rosenthal wrote that, of the ﬁve areas “only the Ganzfeld ESP studies meet the basic requirements of sound experimental design”.

(3) Rosenthal has also said that, “ganzfeld research would do very well in head-to-head comparisons with mainstream research. The experimenter-derived artifacts described in my 1966 (enlarged edition 1976) book Experimenter Effects in Behavioral Research were better dealt with by ganzfeld researchers than by many researchers in more traditional domains.”

(4) Even the prominent skeptical psychologist and CSI fellow, Richard Wiseman (who I quoted in my essay), agrees that the evidence for ESP from the Ganzfeld, remote viewing, etc., is decisive by the standards of any other area of science. Do you think Wiseman is mistaken, and if so, why?

(5) The skeptical psychologist and CSI fellow, Chris French, has commented that, “The best research in parapsychology appears to me to be at least as scientiﬁc as that in other areas of social science, including psychology.” Do have reason to doubt French's assessment, and if so, why?

I can provide references for these quotes, if you’d like.

About parapsychology having “more than a century”, consider Jessica Utts’ rebuttal to this:

“While critics are fond of relating, as Professor Hyman does in his report, that there has been "more than a century of parapsychological research (p. 7)" psychologist Sybo Schouten (1993, p. 316) has noted that the total human and financial resources devoted to parapsychology since 1882 is at best equivalent to the expenditures devoted to fewer than two months of research in conventional psychology in the United States.”http://www.ics.uci.edu/~jutts/response.html

Also, it is actually not true that nobody has “any idea” about what psi might be and why it works. There are serious theoretical models on the table that make testable predictions. Two of the most promising, arguably, are DAT and CIRTS:

Finally, concerning your advice, I still plan on advancing my budding career, but I also hope I can persuade the skeptical community to be a bit more open-minded about this line of research, and, over time, soften the stigma against it so that more rigorous proof-oriented research can be done to settle the question of whether ESP exists. That seems pretty reasonable to me.

I find that kind of comments really showing how full of yourself you are. I'm not commenting here about psi. Maybe it exists, maybe it doesn't. I think myself that it doesn't (I'm not sure about it, but I lean toward skepticism), but that's not my point here.

My point is that changing the viewpoint of the scientific community about the paranormal has been the goal of many people before you. From the founding father of psychical research (with great thinkers like William James and many others), to J. B. Rhine and his move to transform psychical research into a new paradigm (parapsychology), to people now like Dean "Noetic Science" Radin or Rupert Sheldrake.

Has any of those people succeded to change so far the scientific consensus? No. But of course, Maaneli will do it! He will succed where all other before him have fail! Because, you see, Maaneli is really, really clever.

Come on. Get back down to hearth. It's possible to change the scientific consensus, but it's not one person who will do it. It's a process, a dialog between scientists, between proponents and skeptics. Maybe science will move in the futur toward a much broader acceptance of paranormal phenomena (and psi - whatever that is), or not. Nobody can really tell (maybe real psychics if they exist). But I know it's not Maaneli who will do it if it's going to happen.

<< Has any of those people succeded to change so far the scientific consensus? No. But of course, Maaneli will do it! >>

I think there's a bit of a misunderstanding here. I'm certainly not under any illusions that I can single-handedly change the scientific consensus on parapsychology. What I said was that I hope I can persuade the skeptical community (e.g. CSI, CFI, JREF, etc.) to be a little more open-minded to parapsychology. And what I mean by "a little more open-minded" is that they not prejudge the field as pseudoscience, but rather (in the spirit of good critical thinking and skepticism) make the effort to seriously examine the empirical evidence and theories that parapsychologists have put forth, and not take what the existing skeptical literature says about the topic as gospel truth.

Of course, even that is not something I can do single-handedly. But I do think I have a fair chance of convincing some of the more prominent members of the community (like Massimo) to reconsider their current positions on the topic by having discussions in forums like these. And if that happens frequently enough, then the general consensus of the skeptical community could shift as well. And if that happens, then I think there's a good chance that the broader scientific community might start to follow suit.

Hi, just wanted to add my support to the view and rigour of maaneli. Despite any personal beliefs, the approach of clear points and references is exactly what any serious enquiry needs (even more if it comes to a so bombarded topic as psi subjects).

I regularly listen podcasts and it is surprising how many of them are about 'scepticism'. A few of them are quite good and entertaining, but other ones are ultra patronising, many times appealing to authority as mentioned above...this is not scientific at all ! It's hard not to relate this to current sociological situations such as the rise of religious fundamentalism in the west, particularly in US. So yes it is annoying to have people talking what truly seems nonsense, but for other cases it is just not clear that mainstream science got it right. Then, it is the most healthy attitude from a scientific perspective to doubt when there is room for doubt.

I came across a talk by R.Sheldrake and it seemed to bring some interesting points about parapsychology, potential pitfalls in research including the ganzfeld exps, and very especially the burden of being nearly the antithesis of mainstream science. Funny annecdote on R.Dawkins for those interested. (podcast here http://sms.cam.ac.uk/collection/664697together with a physics nobel prize that has also raised huge controversies out of his interest in parapsychology and other "unusual" theories)

Re "... so that more rigorous proof-oriented research can be done to settle the question of whether ESP exists."

In light of our staggeringly successful theories in physics, biology, chemistry, neuroscience, and the tremendous advancements in human anatomy and biophysics over the last 100 years, which together make the existence of ESP ridiculously implausible, 'more rigorous proof-oriented research' is wholly unnecessary and an illogical misallocation of otherwise scarce resources.

Re "Regarding overturning physics and biology as we understand them, I’ve heard the claim before with respect to physics, but I’ve never seen a valid argument to support the assertion."

Humans receive stimuli from the environment in ways reducible to known physical processes. We 'see' photons via about 120 million photoelectric receptor cells. The cells convert the photons into electric signals (transduction) which are then directed via optic nerves to the brain. We 'hear' variable compressions in a gaseous medium which cause mechanical transformations in our ear. The sound waves are transformed into electric signals and sent to the brain. Similarly for pressure changes in somatosensation and chemical reactions in olfaction and gustation.

As far as I am aware, all the ways humans receive stimuli are reducible to known physical processes and anatomical structures, and biophysics explain how sensory systems operate. As far as I am aware, anatomy and biophysics makes no room for ESP. ESP is given no plausible mechanism by its supporters, neither as it pertains to human anatomy nor as a physical process. In other words, advocates have yet to advance any plausible hypothesis as to how humans receive ESP stimuli. (This relegates the parapsychologist to anomaly-hunting, which is rife with problems on many levels.)

If the parapsychologists would like the scientific community to take ESP seriously, they will have to provide more than a handful of contentious studies. They will have to advance a complete programme which accounts for our best knowledge of human anatomy, biophysics, and the rest of the relevant sciences. Of course, they have not done this, and I think for good reason: it would make falsification too easy.

Re the three papers linked to at the end of your initial comment. Who among the relevant scientific fields takes the papers seriously? If hardly anyone, then why is this so? Of course, I could probably dig up papers from out-of-the-way academics from a mid-level institutions that purport to show scientific evidence for the existence of endless amounts of claptrappery (UFOs, cryptozoology, Climate Change criticism, intelligent design, homeopathy, etc.), but what would that show?

Parapsychologists do have hypothesis about how humans receive ESP stimuli. Whether they seem plausible to you depends on your initial assumptions and the extent of your scientific imagination. Rather than assuming what parapsychologists have or haven't done, I recommend reading those papers I posted.

Also, note that cognitive scientists are very far off from having a complete understanding of how the brain works (particularly for higher-order cognitive functions), and how consciousness emerges from the complex interactions of billions of neurons. Given this state of affairs, it seems rather presumptuous to assert that biology make no room for some kind of ESP mechanism.

<< They will have to advance a complete programme which accounts for our best knowledge of human anatomy, biophysics, and the rest of the relevant sciences. >>

Ultimately, yes, that would be necessary. But the fact that they aren't able to do that yet is not legitimate grounds for ignoring the empirical evidence or characterizing parapsychology as pseudoscience.

<< Re the three papers linked to at the end of your initial comment. Who among the relevant scientific fields takes the papers seriously? If hardly anyone, then why is this so? >>

I don't know what "the relevant scientific fields" is supposed to mean. But within parapsychology, those papers are taken very seriously. Also, you seem to be missing the point that I was simply rebutting Massimo's claim that parapsychologists have no clue how ESP might theoretically work.

<< Of course, I could probably dig up papers from out-of-the-way academics from a mid-level institutions that purport to show scientific evidence for the existence of endless amounts of claptrappery (UFOs, cryptozoology, Climate Change criticism, intelligent design, homeopathy, etc.), but what would that show? >>

Since this comment amounts to nothing more than condescending question begging, nothing more needs to be said.

Where to begin? First, my post script was neither condescending nor question begging. The comment was made to get this point across: that there are papers that purport to offer explanations for so-called ESP shows nothing as there are outlandish papers published that purport to offer explanations for a great number of extraordinary claims. What needs to be shown is that the papers are being taken seriously by the relevant scientific community. So, what needs to be shown is that the papers you cite are being taken seriously by the larger cognitive science community, not just by parapsychologists. (I imagine there are papers being taken seriously by many cryptozoologists that go unnoticed, or are ignored, by the larger zoology community.)

Second,

Re: 'Parapsychologists do have hypothesis about how humans receive ESP stimuli. Whether they seem plausible to you depends on your initial assumptions and the extent of your scientific imagination.'

Per your statement the hypothesis that a celestial rubber chicken created the universe is plausible given the appropriate assumptions and scientific imagination. No, plausibility is determined by the background of relevant scientific knowledge. Of course, this in no way implies that what was once implausible never becomes plausible; only that in order for the previously implausible to become plausible, a lot of work needs to be done. In regards to parapsychology, this work has not been forthcoming.

Third,

Re “Given this state of affairs, it seems rather presumptuous to assert that biology make no room for some kind of ESP mechanism.”

Per our best science, ESP is not plausible. It may become plausible, but our best science makes no recourse for ESP. Do you deny that the vast majority of cognitive scientists, biophysicists who work on human biology, and human physiologists eliminate ESP on plausibility grounds?

Fourth,

Re “But the fact that they aren't able to do that yet is not legitimate grounds for ignoring the empirical evidence or characterizing parapsychology as pseudoscience.”

I would agree to some extent, though parapsychologists have had quite some time to come up with something. It has been an area of active research for over 150 years. That said, though, that parapsychologists have no research programme entails that they must search out anomalous data, and such tactics easily give rise to pseudoscientific tendencies.

Re “Also, you seem to be missing the point that I was simply rebutting Massimo's claim that parapsychologists have no clue how ESP might theoretically work.”

No, I got your point.

In the end, Massimo's suggestion applies: “Maaneli: either shelve this whole thing and concentrate on your budding career as a theoretical physicist, or get your hands dirty and work to produce the kind of evidence (and theory) that really has the potential to shock the scientific world into paying attention.”

<< What needs to be shown is that the papers are being taken seriously by the relevant scientific community. So, what needs to be shown is that the papers you cite are being taken seriously by the larger cognitive science community, not just by parapsychologists. >>

The problem with that is, most of the relevant scientific community incorrectly assumes that ESP has already been falsified by science (e.g. like Massimo and you do or did). So they tend to be unaware of the existence of empirical evidence to the contrary, and are therefore unlikely to consider proposed theories of ESP (i.e. why would someone consider theories for something they already believe does not exist?)

<< Do you deny that the vast majority of cognitive scientists, biophysicists who work on human biology, and human physiologists eliminate ESP on plausibility grounds? >>

I wouldn't be surprised if they did, but it doesn't follow that their reasons would necessarily be correct. Most likely, most of those scientists will not have studied the parapsychology literature, and will therefore make naive assumptions about what ESP would be like (e.g. in terms of effect size, etc.) that don't correspond to what parapsychologists actually claim about ESP.

<< though parapsychologists have had quite some time to come up with something. It has been an area of active research for over 150 years. >>

Massimo made the same claim, and I addressed it in my reply to him. Please take a look at it.

<< No, plausibility is determined by the background of relevant scientific knowledge. >>

Scientific "knowledge" (e.g. theoretical models) is also predicated on certain foundational assumptions. And in many areas of science (e.g. physics), the foundational assumptions are still highly contentious.

Well well well, Eamon, now we're getting to the interesting part at last.

RE: "What needs to be shown is that the papers are being taken seriously by the relevant scientific community. So, what needs to be shown is that the papers you cite are being taken seriously by the larger cognitive science community, not just by parapsychologists. "

Turns out they do. In ANONYMOUS polls.

On the question of whether they believed ESP was "an established fact" or "a likely possibility", the answer was yes - with a rate of 56% in a survey of 500 scientists, and 67% in a survey of 1,000 scientists (see Chris Carter's Parapsychology and the Skeptics, p 89). Another survey (of elite scientists), showed an acceptance rate of over 25% (not a majority, but somewhat disturbing for this kind of "junk evidence")

When a similar questions was posed to university professors, 2/3 accepted ESP (see Radin's The Conscious Universe p 226)

And in the general population, National Science Foundation, U of Chicago and other surveys show that 60% of the respondents strongly believed in ESP, with the percentage actually increasing with the level of education (Radin's Entangled Minds, p 38-40). A similar majority has been found in Swedish surveys - and in both populations the percentage of believers has been increasing over time (Radin's Entangled Minds p 38-40)

There's a big white elephant in the room, Eamon - and as long as we're afraid to acknowledge that institutional fear these types of battles will be fought with the wrong weapons. Which is why I think brave souls like Maaneli should go on quietly forging research partnerships with mainstream scientists who are not spooked by such premises (see recent headlines on biological entanglement), while the skeptics should wait for TIME magazine to declare an official change in the prevalent paradigm before they "come out of the closet". Or not. It will take a lot of courage to face what this means.

Craig, you (and Bem) fall to the fallacy of appealing to authority. There is no single article that can be bullet proofed and the fact that an article is accepted or not is irrelevant. Alcock critisize the methodology of the article and the statistical analyses and he does it correctly in my opinion. He does not need to be an expert in parapsychology to critisize the paper but to understand how science work.